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The Technocracy of Umeria
Umeria is an expansive state just rimward of the hyperspace shoal region known as the Badlands. The capital world of Reisenberg is located in Sector W-7 on the Galactic Standard map of Known Space. The surrounding four sectors are relatively wealthy; the remaining territory of Umeria less so, and also less well patrolled. Organization Umeria is governed by a Council of Technarchs, headed by the First Technarch, a primus inter pares position responsible for coordinating the Seconds for various fields of responsibility (Second for Security, Second for Finance...) and their immediate deputies, the Thirds (who serve as chiefs of staff within their departments). Possession of a doctoral degree in a relevant field of study is a prerequisite for all positions of high responsibility in the Umerian state, including the military (where all general officers and most field officers have published papers on military history, strategy, or technology). Institutional culture in all fields emphasizes a "scientific" attitude towards long range planning, backed by careful and extensive analysis of available statistics, intelligence, and simulation results. This attitude is not as strong within the military, but enjoys great favor within the Umerian intelligence community, making them excellent analysts (if not particularly good field operators). In theory, this system should be fairly efficient, and in the early centuries of the Umerian state under a series of exceptionally able First Technarchs, it was. However, over the past several hundred years, Umeria has developed a significant class divide between the "intelligentsia" and the general public. While this system is not hereditary, modern computer networks make it very easy for young proto-intelligentsia to isolate themselves socially from their peers at an early age. The result is a system where most of the individuals likely to enter the higher ranks of government have little direct, intimate contact with the kind of social structures that exist on the ground. The intelligentsia tend to marry among themselves, converse socially among themselves, and are often far more sensitive to concerns likely to matter to the intelligentsia than to the masses. Even with the best and most populist will in the world, this isolation can result in policy disasters when the Technarchs attempt to enact policies for the good of Umeria without a clear picture of what Umeria is. Subdivisions Umeria has a fairly sharp core-periphery divide. The heart of the Technocracy is a relatively tight cluster of nineteen worlds in close proximity to the capital system of Reisenberg (Sector W-7). These worlds, in W-7 and the four adjacent sectors, were all settled in the early history of the Technocracy, and have been completely terraformed for at least five hundred years. Outside this core are the "second wave" worlds settled from the Umerian heartland, most of which were colonized more recently and are still in the mid- to advanced stages of terraforming. These planets are much poorer, and outside analysts often condemn the Umerian economy as exploiting these worlds for the benefit of the core- though a Umerian core worlder would argue that it's the core worlds' taxes and industrial base that ensures the colonies' economic security. Economy Geographic Distribution The core-periphery divide is a major issue in the economy of the Umerian state. The worlds at the center of Umeria, in and immediately around Sector W-7, have old, diversified economies with large city-dwelling populations and advanced industrial operations. The 'second wave expansion' worlds beyond that mostly do not. They have plentiful raw materials (near-surface ore and oil deposits, for instance), and in many cases have industries devoted to the direct refining of the more profitable resources on their planets. But the Technarchs have shown little interest in diversifying the colonial economies, viewing them mainly as a source of industrial goods and a backdrop on which to build massive infrastructure projects. The planned elements of the Umerian economy tend to focus on bulk production of raw materials (steel, petrochemicals, etc.) on the one hand and on high-end technically sophisticated equipment (industrial robotics, naval weaponry, advanced modeling software) on the other. This makes the Umerian border regions a very attractive market for manufactured goods, and over the past century or two the Technarchs have been extremely permissive with respect to allowing such good into their economy The consumer goods market in the fringe worlds is met largely by imports, as part of a "triangular trade" in which the Umerian Fringe supplies the core worlds with raw materials, the core exports precision machinery and customized software to foreign powers, and Umeria's trade partners sell manufactured goods to the Fringe. The obvious disadvantage of this is that it leads to currency scarcity on the Fringe, and leaves the Fringe with little sense of integration into the core worlds' economy. Structure Structurally, the Umerian economy can be described as heavily planned. While not all means of production are state-controlled at any given time, but private industry exists largely on sufferance. As a rule, a Umerian private enterprise only lasts long if it manages to both ''outperform state enterprises ''and ''do so under criteria largely set by the government. This is practically impossible if the government is not sympathetic. Moreover, private enterprises in Umeria are seldom organized along lines commonly seen in capitalist societies. It is very rare for any significant business to be founded by individuals pooling assets and seeking out venture capital- Umeria has no equivalent of the joint stock company. Instead, large scale private enterprise is generally born from nationalized sectors where performance is high enough that the Technarchs feel they can afford to take a few risks for the sake of innovation- or low enough that they feel compelled to do so. In that case, the state may farm out parts to organizations headed by suitably educated individuals. In practice, this means that Umerian "corporations" are organized by splinter groups of the intelligentsia who are experimenting with unorthodox methods of production or organziation, with the Ministry of Production's approval. Much the same procedure used to found research labs: a group of respected specialists spins off their own operation from central control and is permitted to run with it as long as they achieve results. Thus, the level of ''formal ''nationalization of industry in the Technocracy varies, though control never really leaves the technocrats as a class. Moreover, there are relatively few financial advantages to running a private enterprise in Umeria. Very little of the actual wealth ends up as individuals' personal assets, and there's no real concept of limited liability. Taking foolhardy gambles with the "private company's" assets is a good way to wind up ''persona non grata ''among the intelligentsia. Extent of Nationalization The one sector of the economy where control is never farmed out to private innovators is finance. Finance is kept under strict technocrat control, and is one of the main tools by which various sectors get nationalized and denationalized depending on the technarchs' priorities. Among the industrial and service sectors, there's an ongoing competition between the Vimesian and Zapatist* schools of thought in the Ministry of Production. Zapatists call for a fully planned economy with an eye to optimizing the resources available for major state projects. Vimesians argue that there's no sense exercising tight control of industries where such control is not critical to the economy as a whole, if nothing else to reduce the number of ways to make mistakes. Control of the main state ministries tends to wobble back and forth between the schools every few decades; after a generation or so of Vimesianism the Umerian economy starts to resemble a idirigiste/i semi-capitalist system, whereas after a long period of Zapatism, the government implements near-total control and planning of the economy. This has been going on long enough that everyone has learned to recognize the pattern; it's a well known and documented phenomenon that's liable to end only if outside forces bring about the collapse of one or the other of the two schools of economics. History The founding generation who founded the Technocracy of Umeria were typical by the standards of the Human Diaspora. Most were drawn from the population of Nova Terra, with a handful of like-minded supporters from Earth. Their great uniting dream was an escape from the failings of terrestrial governments, and a new society built around scientific principles. The would-be technocrats named themselves Umerians, after a short-lived 21st-century internationalist political faction on Nova Terra, dedicated to the principle of scientific government, which had played a minor role in the construction of the early STL vessel ''Straylight. Umeria collected a mixture of highly educated enthusiasts, mostly scientists and engineers, along with a large population of near-refugees who had particular reasons to be embittered with the limits of democracy and conventional dictatorships. Many had lost homes or loved ones to environmental disasters, fallout from major wars, or economic crises. All believed firmly in the idea that an enlightened, meritocratic civilization could overcome the failings that plagued most societies during the Great Upheaval. The expedition assembled a small fleet of hyperspace colony vessels and departed in 2289 Nova Terran Calendar, probing outward along a major hyperspace lane. After settling on a promising world just short of the shoal region known as the Badlands, the Umerians began the task of assembling an industrial civilization on a virgin planet. The Technocrats were blessed with both good luck and foresight: luck in choosing a readily habitable world with rich mineral deposits, and foresight in having invested in a wide selection of expensive machine tools. The Umerian economy boomed, and within a few decades appeals by the Council of Technarchs drew in a second wave of colonists from the home sectors. The Umerians enjoyed further good luck in finding several near-habitable planets within easy distance of their capital world of Reisenberg. Claim to these worlds was largely uncontested, and the Technarchs began terraforming. The taxes required to support terraforming operations were painful, but most Umerians (still dominated politically by the first generation of pioneers) accepted the burden, knowing that it would bear fruit in centuries to come. By 2600, Umeria was a relatively successful concentrated polity, with a thriving high-tech sector. Progress on the terraforming of the worlds around Reisenberg was well underway, and projections indicated that the future of Umeria was bright. It seemed as if the Technarchs could do no wrong, until the arrival of a powerful, hostile outside force. The Jaggan War Storming out of the Badlands came an Ork pirate armada under a ruler known to history as the Tyrant of Jagga. The Tyrant was drawn to Umeria by the combination of rich planets and anemic naval defenses; the Umerian Space Security Force consisted mainly of light patrol vessels, with a handful of moderately capable orbital defense platforms. Jagga was unusual among Ork warlords in that he bothered to prepare a plan of campaign before launching his attack into Umerian space. This plan of campaign revolved around his flagship, known only as "the Rock." The Rock was a nickel-iron asteroid kilometers in diameter, hollowed out and retrofitted with a heavy battery of mass drivers and a crude but effective space drive. The Rock's defensive shielding was poor and the raw metal of the asteroid was relatively weak compared to artificial armor composites, but it had one advantage that no doubt appealed to the Tyrant of Jagga: sheer bulk. The defensive depth of the Rock was such that it could shrug off massive salvoes of heavy nuclear torpedoes with only superficial damage; most critical components were a kilometer or more under the surface. Saturation nuclear bombardment might gouge enormous craters in the Rock's flanks, but it was a simple matter to bond new layers of rock and nickel-iron to the exterior and restore it to its original state of near-invulnerability. Led by the Tyrant from his flagship, the Jaggan armada would leap out of hyperspace around a target world and move slowly into the inner system, the lesser ships of the Ork armada mostly staying under cover of the guns of the Rock. When the Rock approached the planet, it demolished any orbital and surface defense installations with a barrage of mass driver slugs, allowing the smaller craft to land on the planet and loot its treasures at their leisure. The Tyrant's rampage through the Umerian worlds proved unstoppable. Not even Reisenberg itself was immune. However, the Ork fleet departed after several months' campaigning; it is speculated that the Tyrant was forced to return home to the Badlands to deal with threats to his dominance of the Ork warlords in the region. Umeria was devastated by the Ork raids, which had proven far more damaging than anything the Technarchs had expected. While civilian casualties were surprisingly light, the national GDP declined by nearly thirty percent the following year, as the orks had smashed or carried off enormous quantities of valuable industrial goods. All remaining assets of the Technocracy were put to work amassing a military capable of meeting the threat of a renewed offensive by the Tyrant of Jagga. The task of meeting the smaller Ork raiding craft was relatively simple; these needs were mostly met with foreign-purchase destroyers from a variety of sources. The true difficulty lay in countering the Rock itself, which had proven so resistant to the massed nuclear missile attacks popular at the time. This task fell to an elite design team led by one of the senior surviving officers of the Space Security Force, Commodore Edom Waxman. Waxman forced a ruthlessly optimized design on the Bureau of Ships, built around an experimental superheavy ion cannon that had been considered but discarded for use as a stationary orbital defense weapon. The result was the Vindicator-class dreadnought. When the Tyrant of Jagga returned five years later, he charged straight into the combined battleline of the new Umerian fleet, including six Vindicator dreadnoughts. While the Umerian screen swept aside the ork raiders, the Vindicators engaged the Jaggan flagship directly. Sidestepping the Rock's mass driver fire with lateral thrusters, the dreadnoughts powered up their main armament and began peppering the Rock with relativistic ion beams. After the engagement was over, the Rock appeared substantially intact- but it hung dead in space, on a ballistic course that took it lazily towards Reisenberg and then out into interstellar space. Umerian automated battle drones boarded the wreck and transmitted back their findings to Central Command. The ion cannon had drilled deep tunnels into the interior, severing power conduits and destroying vital installations. Moreover, sidescatter from the heavy particle beams left the heart of the fortress asteroid a hell of radiation, in which even the hardy physiology of an Ork could not survive for long. The Tyrant of Jagga was found dead of massive radiation poisoning, his great hands still clutching the controls for the Rock's defensive guns. The success of the Vindicator-class dreadnoughts served as a proof of concept for following generations of Umerian capital ships, all around a battery of superheavy spinal particle cannon. Military Umeria is not a particularly militaristic state. The organization of the Space Security Force (the Umerian navy) is heavy on patrol elements, and its ship designs mostly lack long range power projection capability without supporting fleet bases or an extensive fleet train. Likewise, the ground force retains the capacity to intervene on contested planets, but is not well organized for fighting a protracted multi-planet campaign on foreign soil. Ground Forces The Technocracy maintains a four-tier active duty military force: Strike, Intervention, Assault, and Line. Strike ("super-elites," trained to a standard of 30,000/$, 15x kit multiplier) Strike units include the Umerian special forces and elite ground formations of the highest caliber. They are mostly used for space-to-ground or space-to-space operations, where the manpower that can fit on a spacegoing warship is at a premium. A strike company will generally consist of highly trained (but unenhanced) soldiers in very advanced powered armor, highly sophisticated armored fighting vehicles, or the formidable Umerian combat drones. Combat drones use an example of Umerian "expert systems" in action. Within the bounds set by their programmed rules of engagement, they are extremely difficult to kill, heavily armed, and react with blinding speed to threats and enemy movement. They are typically used in the field only in tandem with human units to provide operational guidance and support in the event of sudden changes in the rules of engagement, since they are not flexible or intelligent enough to replace humans in the field. Strike formations are assigned specific, small scale objectives. They are often deployed from the Umerian Space Security Force's strike cruisers to capture or destroy key targets in preparation for a larger ground assault, or for hit and run raids against remote targets. There are approximately one million Strike troops (including battle drones and AFV crews as soldiers) in operation at any one time; the number varies gradually as new generations of combat drone are released with improved programming or equipment. Intervention (elites, trained to a standard of 50,000/$, 2x kit multiplier) Intervention units form the first wave of a large scale Umerian space-to-ground assault, typically travelling in lightly protected troopships rather than the heavily armed strike cruisers. They are exceptionally well trained and well equipped by the standards of ordinary human soldiers, but lack the extraordinary elan or physical enhancement found in truly high-end ground combat units. The Technocracy maintains a standing force of fifty million Intervention troops. This is deemed sufficient to invade an Earth-like planet with a population of up to several billion, assuming only moderate ground opposition and space supremacy. Many strategists, including a vocal minority within Umeria itself, would deem this number inadequate. Assault (regulars, trained to a standard of 100,000/$, 1x kit multiplier) Assault formations make up the bulk of the Umerian military likely to be committed to combat. In the event of extended planetary resistance, Assault divisions are deployed to a target world to reinforce beachheads taken by Intervention units. They may also undertake occupation duty in particularly hazardous environments. Despite the name, Assault troops are also often deployed to Umerian planets in anticipation of a ground assault, as they are better suited to the task of area defense on a continental scale than the relatively low-number Intervention forces. There are roughly 450 million troops rated Assault-grade in the Umerian Ground Security Force. Line (garrison/conscript, trained to a standad of 200,000/$, 1x kit multiplier) Line formations are deemed effective enough to be worthwhile in offensive military campaigns, but not for high-intensity operations. They are drawn directly from the Planetary Defense Forces, and their ranks are often filled by conscription. Conscripts from the fringe worlds are often talented but relatively unreliable; conscripts from the core worlds can be counted on for political reliability and freedom from corruption, but tend to lack the motivation for heavy combat. Umeria maintains 1.2 billion Line troops, though most of them are kept on their homeworlds except in times of emergency, when they are deployed to garrison occupied worlds, secure logistics bases from enemy raiders, and so forth. Space Weapons While many other powers have progressed to the use of weapon systems based on exotic physics beyond the old "Standard Model," Umeria has concentrated on refining relatively simple weapons with more advanced technology. The Technocracy still employs exotic physics in its defenses and propulsion systems, naturally, and research into exotic-physics theory and its applications to weapon design are still funded. But for offensive armament the Umerians take pride in their place among the galaxy's leading producers of hoary old mainstays such as particle cannon and nuclear warheads. Key technologies used include: Missiles Missiles are a secondary weapon in the eyes of Umerian tacticians, particularly in large-scale ship combat. However, a variety of missile designs are used for small and medium combatants, mostly to enable them to damage larger and more dangerous targets. All designs currently in use employ variations on the warhead concept pioneered in the Mk I "Melon" missile. Ignoring individual sub-marks and detailed remarks on capability, examples include: Mk IV "Cantaloupe" Antiship Torpedo The Mk IV carries an extremely powerful warhead and varying levels of focusing. Different versions of the Cantaloupe are designed to direct the torpedo blast into a single jet to penetrate extremely heavy shielding or to hit targets from outside the optimal range of close-in point defense, a wide-angle jet to engage multiple closely spaced soft targets, or an omnidirectional burst (most useful for planetary bombardment, though occasionally employed for mine clearance and other specialized purposes). The Mk IV has two major disadvantages: it is too large to be carried in substantial number by small craft, and that it is ''relatively ''short ranged by the standards of other powers' heavy missiles. Mk V "Honeydew" General Purpose Missile The Mk V, in contrast, is a much smaller, lighter, and shorter ranged weapon, with a single wide-angle focusing system for the warhead. The Honeydew lacks the punch to penetrate capital ship armor or shielding, and so is generally deployed in an antimissile/antifighter role. On occasion it has been used long range to cause superficial damage to a heavier target's sensors or other vulnerable surface features. However, its short drive endurance limits it in this role. The Mk V is seldom seen on large starships, where beam weapons are preferred for the point defense role. Instead, it is typically used for small craft. Mk VI "Galia" Antiship Missile The Galia was designed as an attempt to combine the light frame of the Mk V with the antiship punch of the Mk IV, with considerable success. The Galia uses an extended, longer range missile body with more sophisticated sensors and ECCM to aid in getting close to defended targets. The warhead is comparable to that of the Honeydew in yield, but is fuzed for a much more tightly focused close-proximity burst, for maximum effect against single, low-maneuverability targets. The Mk VI can overwhelm light capital ship defenses, at the cost of being much less effective in the Mk V's antimissile/antifighter roles. However, unlike the Mk IV, it is largely ineffective against heavy capital ship defenses, due to the need to detonate close to the target and the lack of brute warhead power. Phased Array Laser (PAL) These systems use very large grids of nanotech elements to generate intense beams of coherent infrared light, by a method analogous to 20th-century phased array radar systems. In atmosphere, these lasers appear green to the eye due to frequency doubling, though the green light observed is but a small fraction of the far more intense infrared radiation of the beam itself. Observation of Umerian laser weapons in operation is not recommended without protective eyewear. PAL panels have several advantages. The activation of individual elements is software controlled, allowing the panel to fire a beam across a wide angular range without moving parts. Since each element can be controlled independently, the PAL can generate multiple beams from the same panel, and traverse the beams independently. Moreover, it is practically impossible for low-energy damage to disable the weapon; destroying a handful of elements has little effect on the overall power of the laser. Offsetting these strengths are two critical weaknesses. The individual emitter elements are sharply limited in maximum output power, and the total power of the PAL scales with the area of the panel. This requires the use of prohibitively large panels in order to generate a beam effective against capital ship armor or shielding. PAL panels are normally seen only on relatively small craft (with high surface-to-volume ratios) for engaging relatively small targets (fragile enough to damage with a PAL beam). The nearby state of Tianguo is a leader in phased array laser technology, thanks to more advanced nanotechnological research; Umerian PAL weapons lag considerably behind Tianguo phasers in output power. Free-Electron Laser The free electron laser uses a high energy recirculating electron beam passing through an intense magnetic 'wiggler' field to generate a beam of coherent light. The main disadvantages of this weapon are that it is energy-inefficient by modern standards, and that it demands great linear acceleration distance, and therefore a very long barrel for a given power output. For pure space combat, the FEL is largely obsolete. However, the FEL has one great advantage: frequency agility. An FEL can be 'tuned' to generate a coherent laser beam at any of an extremely wide range of frequencies, panning across the entire visible spectrum and well into the near-infrared and near-ultraviolet. Therefore, it can be tuned to penetrate great thicknesses of atmosphere, or to exploit the resonance frequencies of most materials and certain types of energy shielding, given sufficient time to make adjustments. Therefore, the FEL retains a niche role in planetary bombardment, allowing a ship in atmosphere to fire for maximum effect against surface targets, including hardened and shielded ones that would otherwise require a much more energetic barrage to defeat. Electron Cannon Filling a niche between the relatively low-power PAL and low-efficiency FEL on the one hand and the extremely large proton cannon on the other is the mainstay of Umerian light capital ship and secondary armament: the electron cannon. Thanks to their high charge-mass ratio, electron beams can be brought up to high energy over short acceleration distances; this makes turreted electron linacs a viable choice for small starships that could not mount heavier weapons. However, electron beams are nearly useless except in vacuum; the beam disperses very quickly. Moreover, the same high charge-mass ratio that makes them easy to accelerate makes them easy to deflect; electron beams are bad at penetrating heavy shielding, though relatively effective against armor due to secondary radiation. Proton Cannon The pride of the Umerian arms industry is its superheavy proton cannon designs. Thanks to centuries of research in particle accelerator research, Umeria produces some of the most effective particle beam weapons in the galaxy, with excellent beam focus, energy efficiency, and destructive power. The design of Umerian capital ships capitalizes on this strength with a spinal armament design. The standard Umerian particle cannon fires a continuous stream of five-nanosecond pulses, at a repetition rate of ~40 MHz: forty million pulses a second. This provides, in effect, a continuous beam. The individual pulses are weak by the standards of space warfare, but the cumulative effect of several million such pulses is devastating. The beam passes down a line of superconducting acceleration chambers and containment magnets; these form the 'barrel' of the weapon, which can stretch up to multi-kilometer lengths for dreadnought-grade beams. At the muzzle, fine adjustment of beam targeting is performed using a set of steering dipoles, which can be adjusted to aim the beam anywhere within a cone roughly half a degree in width. Coarse adjustment is handled with the ship's maneuvering thrusters. Heavy proton cannon can be used either to inflict massive damage on single hardened target, or to create a 'wall' of closely spaced particle bolts by raking the beam back and forth through a target volume. This second fire mode is particularly useful for antimissile defense. Category:National Information